I believe my PhD dissertation was unfairly graded too low (cum laude): what should I do?

Question

I recently completed my Ph.D. in Germany. I believe my dissertation was evaluated extremely unfairly. For my dissertation, I published seven papers in high-impact international medical journals (IF from 3 to 6). I used four of them as core papers and three of them as additional publications. I also have six conference papers. My seven papers have been cited about 34 times so far. The first one was published in Oct 2017.

For the written theses, I had two main reviewers and one of them suggested my grade to be “strong magna cum laude” and the other one said it should be cum laude¹. Then, I was very much prepared to change the second reviewer during my defense. I did an excellent presentation and defense (that is what everyone who was there told me). The second reviewer asked only four questions during the defense. I answered them properly although one was unrelated to my work.

After the defense was over, I was told to go out with the entire audience until the review committee decided my grade. They took a long time and I was sensing there must be something they didn’t agree with. Finally, I was called to go in and one of the reviewers said: “Congratulations, you passed. Unfortunately, your grade is cum laude. We are stuck in the middle.” This was extremely disappointing to me and I believe the whole process was totally unfair as everyone else also think so.

As I heard from the student members who sat with the committee, this reviewer said I didn’t include a reference for the animated graph that I have produced myself, and insisted that I don’t deserve more than cum laude. They were fighting for a long time until the first reviewer gave up. I, my wife who also has a Ph.D. from many years ago, and the entire audience didn’t expect my grade would be like that. In fact, many believe that I am unfairly treated because of my skin color. This is the most difficult situation for me. I am very much stressed and I don’t know how much impact it will have on my career at least to get a postdoc position. What bugs me is that this reviewer doesn’t have a major point.

I am now considering to appeal to the university. But, I am scared. I also wish to retract my thesis and submit it to another university in Germany and defend it again. Please advise me on what to do.

---

^{¹ There are usually four passing grade for a PhD in Germany: *summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude* and *rite* (from best to worst).}

Answer 1

Why it matters

In my field, cum laude or rite (the two worst German PhD grades) are rarely ever awarded and if they are, it’s usually a sign that there were major issues and a strong hint that the PhD should not consider any career aspirations in academia. Such PhDs often end in positions which mainly care about the title for its own sake (e.g., to impress customers). Your field may differ a bit, but even in law (which is known for using the entire spectrum of grades), such grades would not bode well on an academic career.

I would be careful with taking the position that the grade does not matter. As already said, the vast majority of PhDs that stay in academia have either summa cum laude or magna cum laude (the two best grades). Since getting a summa requires at least a bit of luck in many examination rules¹, many people do rightfully not care about the difference between the two. On the other hand, not having either is likely to raise some eyebrows and may prevent you from getting your desired position without you ever knowing why. Even if you find stories of people who had a successful academic career in your field with a cum laude, beware of survivor’s bias.

Moreover, many job offers in Germany (in particular at government agencies) explicitly require a very good PhD². This includes professorships to the extent that it is in the text of the respective laws (Landeshochschulgesetz), e.g., the one for Northrhine-Westphalia states (translation mine):

Einstellungsvoraussetzungen für Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer sind […]: […] besondere Befähigung zu wissenschaftlicher Arbeit, die in der Regel durch die Qualität einer Promotion nachgewiesen wird; […]

---

Preconditions for being hired as a professor are […]: […] an outstanding qualification for scientific work, which usually is evidenced by the quality of the doctorate; […]

Now, this does say “usually”, which means it is technically not impossible to get a professorship with a bad PhD, only more difficult. But that already can be a severe disadvantage and may mean that you are ending up with a considerably worse position.

One function of such rules and phrases in job offers are things like avoiding nepotism or having to hire a bad candidate due to lack of better ones. Still if the criterion is phrased respectively, it may be legally impossible to hire you since you fail a hard criterion. If I found out that the successful candidate for a public job I failed to get only has a rite, I would certainly suspect foul play and consider legal action.

All in all, this grade may very well be career-ending.

---

^{¹ I know of cases where somebody did not get a summa only because they did not perform top-notch in a one-hour oral examination on their field of study that was unrelated to the topic of the PhD. Consider a theoretical cosmologist PhD being asked about lasers.
² Including your grades on your CV as well as providing a copy of the actual PhD certificate is the default in the hiring process, so you cannot really hide it.}

What to be scared of

I am now considering to appeal to the university. But, I am scared.

… of what?

It sounds like you have little left to lose here. If your PhD gets re-evaluated from scratch, you are very unlikely to end up with a worse grade. There is a small risk that you earn a reputation over making a fuss about this, but those who care about this will also likely care about your grade. On the other hand, if I were to consider you for a position and asked you for the story behind your grade (and I probably would), I would rather be negatively surprised if you hadn’t made a fuss.

What to do

Now, every faculty in Germany has its own PhD rules and therefore it is difficult to make any general statement here. However, there are several aspects of your story where my PhD rules could have kicked in:

• There would be two further members of the committee who can intervene in case of major disputes or grades being given with questionable reason or an accusation of academic misconduct (using material without a reference) against which you could not defend yourself.

• The entire committee (four professors) grades the defense.

• If the two main examiners differ by more than one grade, a third examiner would have to be consulted.

• If your thesis is deemed to have major flaws, you have to be given the opportunity to amend it.

• Grades for the thesis have to be given independently and cannot be changed afterwards. (It sounds like the “bad” examiner wanted to give a cum laude, so it cannot be the middle, unless he changed it to a worse grade later.)

• There is a written record of committee’s decisions.

• Nobody else would have been admitted to attend the committee making the decision. It is particularly weird that students can attend, but you cannot.

I recommend that you thoroughly read your faculty’s PhD rules and consult with whoever oversees the process (usually the dean). Also talk to the “good” examiner (your supervisor, I presume) to get a more detailed story of what happened.

Note that most PhD rules also forbid you to just submit your thesis to another university.

Caveats

Beware that you very likely did not get the full story so far. For example, attendees of the committee’s decision tend to primarily report the most egregious aspects even though other points had been made.

Answer 2

Maybe I can reveal that I actually got rite for my PhD. I think my second reviewer is a psyco who never let his PhD student passed. I think I am the first one getting away from him.

So in the end I got rite. He was so delighted and told me that with that grade I may not be able to find a post-doctoral position. Outside Germany no one asks about the grade. In Germany I still got an academy position in a research center.

I believe the grade matters. But the reality is that fewer and fewer people want to do academia and therefore you might still get a position since you are still a Made-In-Germany PhD. Best wishes to you.

[EDIT] Updated 2 years later

1. I am now still a post-doctoral researcher in the research center for the 4th year. First of all no one ask for my grade. Second my advisors are happy about what I did for them.

2. One of my friends with made-in-Germany PhD, who also got a rite because the second reviewer did not like his research topic, is now an association professor and also the Institute Head in our home country.

I just want to address that rite is not the end of the world.

Answer 3

Welcome to the cum laude club! I've been a full professor at a polytechnic in Germany since my defense, am now retired. Since there is such an inflation of mcl and scl grades, search committees for which I have read the decision book or participated in myself are more and more disregarding it. The papers (in our field, computer science) at least, especially the conferences, are the ones looked at. And as someone noted above, many professors are retiring in the next years, so there will hopefully be many positions to fill.

Trying to challenge a grade in Germany will be difficult. You can obtain the protocol of the deliberation with a freedom-of-information-act application to the official office of the university (it will differ from state to state). Generally these tend to offer little possibility for requesting redress legally, and that can take anywhere from 3-8 years, as the administrative courts are overworked.

Oops, just saw this is three years old - so tell us, what happened?

Answer 4

At least if you are or plan to be in the United States:

Let's come to the important point first: Nobody will ever ask you about your grade, and if they did, it would have no impact at all. The point of a PhD is to show that you're a capable researcher, and you've made that point. Beyond that, it's about the concrete accomplishments -- papers, presentations, where and what you published, etc. You have a bunch of papers in good places already, and so anyone who evaluates you has plenty to work from.

In other words, you worry unnecessarily. In the 17 years since I got my PhD, nobody has ever asked me how it was rated, and I've never asked anyone that question either. So just let it go and move on: focus on the things you can affect (your next publication) and not on the things where you feel like you didn't get a fair shake.